This website has a helpful on-line dictionary resource. Use it if you have a short Thai phrase you want to figure out. Use the Lookup bar on the top left corner. It is constantly updated and I find it very relevant to learning.

Another on-line translator. This used to be more relevant but I've grown away from it. Do use it as a 2nd opinion if you find that thai-language.com doesn't provide sufficient understanding.

These 2 above are of pretty good quality. The easiest thing about learning Thai is that resources for it are easily available. Compare that with a Thai trying to learn Singlish. It's not as accessible.

Recently I found a resource of text, which I used to refer heavily to. It used to cost me $30-50 to photocopy the entire book. Now, it's available for free online.

Remember the first time you heard a Thai spoke to you? And there was this sing-song rhythm to the words? Or why when they speak English, they tend to have this funny accent, of sounding oddly tonal in a non-tonal language.

Yes. We are going to talk about Tones. Thai is tonal, and this is an inevitable part of learning the language. Might as well tackle it head on and early on.

Luckily, modern Central Thai only has 5 tones, well, we'll number them but a better way is to describe them by their tonal effects.

Number

Tone

Thai

0

Common/Mid

เสียงสามัญ

1

Low

เสียงเอก

2

Falling

เสียงโท

3

High

เสียงตรี

4

Rising

เสียงจัตวา

The reason the first tone in the series is numbered 0 is because the others have been numbered 1 to 4, in Pali. Yes, เอก โท ตรี จัตวา are numbers themselves, and are still in present use in Thai. Often, we call the Leading Actor and Actress in movies as พระเอก นางเอก

โท has fallen out of use but it was once used instead of สอง when calling a number, back in the days when people still had to dial a number through a operator. Connectivity was poor then and using โท was a good way to differentiate between สอง and สาม. It sounds like two anyway, and that's because it shared a common origin.

Anyway, enough about the numbering. The important thing are the tones themselves. Here we shall end with a video that helps to make sense of these tones.

Today, we start on the Thai Alphabets. Like English, there are both Consonants and Vowels. Consonants are like your B, C, D, F, G. Vowels are like your A, E, I, O, U.

For Thai, the first letter of the alphabet is ก. Gor. And like our Singapore education system, if you belong to the A class in the school, you're the brightest group of students. Similarly, good students are usually placed in the ก class.

A quick appreciation of the Thai Consonants is by their Alphabet song. Similar to English, it follows a "A for Apple" "B for Boy" concept.

Now after watching the video, I guess you're wondering why are there 4 consonants making the same S sound? And perhaps why there are at least 6 consonants making the T sound? Yes, that's the slightly tricky part. Often, the consonants belong to different "Classes" Classes play a big part in figuring out tones.

There are 3 consonant classes. Broadly; High, Middle and Low class. We will touch on Middle class next. For now, enjoy a short clip of another video that tries to make a story out of the alphabets. Hopefully, it makes for easier memorisation.

There are 2 ways to type Thai on the laptop and PC. 1 way is to set-up your system so that you can switch the keyboard around to type in Thai. If you have been typing in Chinese hanyu pinyin, you know what to do.

The other way is to use a program like http://www.thai-keyboard.com/ I often use this when I'm overseas and using a foreign computer. Hassle-free.

Anyway, back to the first set-up.

If you're using a Windows set-up, it's quite easy. Just follow these steps.

1. Go to "Control Panel", through "Start"

2. Go to "Regional and Language Options".

3. Under the "Keyboard and Languages" tab, Click on "Change Keyboards"

4. Under the "General" tab, you should be able to Add new languages.

5. Go down the list of languages, and select "Thai Kedmanee", and Click "OK"

6. Under the "Advanced Key Settings" tab, you'll be able to select the keys to change languages. I usually use "Left Alt + Shift", so that I don't accidentally change languages

7. Once you're satisfied, close all the dialogs, and try it out!

If you're not familiar with the keyboard layout, you may refer back to the virtual keyboard, it is identical. Alternatively, you may also purchase keyboard stickers at Pantip that you can overlay your standard keyboard.

Like how we type on the English QWERTY layout, after some practise, you'll find that your fingers know the position of the keys without having to look for it.

In an earlier post, I had referenced that Thai Consonants fall into 3 classes, High, Middle and Low. We'll work on Middle first since it's generally the shortest list.

The Middle Consonants (อักษรกลาง)

Thai Consonant

Official Transcription

Phonemic Transcription

Example

กอ ไก่

Kor Kai

Gaw Gai

Hard G as in Gun, Give. Never soft G as in Gem or Gina

จอ จาน

CHor CHan

Jaw Jaan

J as in Jewel, Jeep

ฎอ ชฎา

Dor CHaDa

Daw CHaDaa

D as in Door, Dog

ฏอ ปฏัก

Tor PaTak

DTaw BPaDTak

DT as in 的 弟

ดอ เด็ก

Dor Dek

Daw Dek

D as in Door, Dog

ตอ เต่า

Tor Tao

DTaw DTao

DT as in 的 弟

บอ ใบไม้

Bor BaiMai

Baw BaiMai

B as in Boy, Ball

ปอ ปลา

Por Pla

BPaw BPlaa

BP as in 白 把

ออ อ่าง

or ang

aw aang

As consonant, อ is silent

I've structured the table with Official Transcription, i.e., this is usually how it's spelled if you have to read road signs. However, I've also added a Phonemic Transcription, which is more faithful to how it sounds. The Official Transcription doesn't work very well, if you expect English sounds to transcribe directly. For example, Koh Samui can be written as Gaw SaMui, Koh Phuket as Gaw PuuGet. Too often I hear Phuket spoken as Fookit!